Just thought we should flag this one while Dick Cheney is still around (and while Obama is still in office).

According to Business Week, the former CEO of Halliburton will soon be wanted for arrest on bribery charges by Nigeria, with whom the U.S. has a long-standing extradition treaty. As well, they may also be asking Interpol, whom the U.S. is supposed to be cooperating with, to help in seeking Cheney's arrest. All of this at a time when Rightwingers (and some non-Rightwingers) are calling on Interpol to arrest WikiLeaks' Julian Assange for...something or other.

All of which may put the U.S. in "a very awkward position", according to Georgetown University's Constitutional Law professor Jonathan Turley, who discussed that --- and the Obama Administration's collusion with Republicans to protect the Bush Administration from torture charges in Spain, as we've now learned from recently released WikiLeaks cables --- on MSNBC last night...

TURLEY: The fact is that we have had an extradition treaty with Nigeria since 1931. And under the U.S. Attorney's manual, these types of red notices are to be enforced. You are to confirm that there's a valid arrest warrant. There's a valid arrest warrant here. And that the country has an extradition treaty with the United States. That exists. And so, what does this mean? It means that the United States is going to be in an awfully difficult position, because they're supposed to help locate the subject. Well, this subject has a Secret Service detail with him at all times. So it won't be too hard to find him. You just call up the detail, and wherever they are, he's there. So it's going to be a very awkward position for the United States. They will have to, effectively, refuse to cooperate with Interpol, refuse to cooperate with Nigeria.

OLBERMANN: Speaking of Interpol, that's an interesting juxtaposition, because the Nigerians want to go via Interpol for the arrest warrant for Vice President Cheney at exactly the same time conservatives here are demanding that we use Interpol to arrest the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange. Is that anything but an irony?

TURLEY: It's a really crushing irony, because it's clear that the United States is pressuring for his arrest, and it would be rather odd for them to be pushing a red notice on Assange and then ignore one with Mr. Cheney. Under the normal course of things, they would assist Interpol and Nigeria in extraditing this individual. The fact that he's a former Vice President is really not supposed to matter. That's why we have that blindfold over Justice. You're not supposed to peek. And this is a red notice and a valid case out of Nigeria, demanding his arrest.

Please note, aside from the charges that Halliburton, its subsidiary KBR and Cheney, its CEO for much of the period in question, are about to face in Nigeria, the companies agreed to pay some $579 million in fines in a settlement with the U.S. SEC last year over those same bribery allegations after it was revealed they'd spent $182 million over 10 years to win more than $6 billion in foreign construction contracts. KBR, along with Halliburton one of the top U.S. government contractors, plead guilty as part of that settlement "to violating the federal law banning companies from paying bribes to get business in foreign countries," according to the Washington Post.

All in all, it looks like, in that instance at least, the bribery paid off with a handsome profit, even including the fines eventually paid to the SEC.

Odd that we don't hear Fox "News" and Andy Breitbart and James O'Keefe, and the Tea Baggers they've all scammed, calling for an end to the billions of dollars in U.S. contracts with admittedly corrupt Halliburton/KBR, despite their "outrage" over the approximate $3 million (with a tiny "m") that ACORN received from the federal government over each of the last 15 years. Thanks for protecting us from that nasty Big Government corruption, "watchdogs"! We know ya care.

Obama and the U.S. Justice Department have a legal duty to render Cheney to Nigeria upon a lawful extradition request, subject to judicial extradition proceedings in the U.S.

Prediction #1: The Obama administration will violate the solemn oath he took to support and defend the Constitution and laws of these United States to protect Cheney now just as it did when it undertook to subvert the judicial process of Germany and Spain to protect those who facilitated torture.

Prediction #2: While a refusal to abide by the rule of law amounts to an impeachable offense, don't look to Congress to do anything about it, even after the Republicans assume a majority in the House. Oh, they'll be more than happy to initiate some bogus investigation, but they would never point to the failure to prosecute Republican law breakers as grounds for impeachment.

Walking dead-soul man, pulseless and cold, still of value to both crazed presidents and complicit congresses. A bargaining chip, as the world's elites scuttle around as the planet dies more and more violently. The silence dear real humans, is deafening.
This last election was the bait and wait for those that are coming to finish democracy off as obummer is doing a heck of a job of continuing to continue to keep real shit from getting solved and horrendous crimes from being punished, and committing a higher volume of them while whining it’s the other guys fault I have to do this. No real leadership there!
We really do need a new party before 2012, a union of real democrats, real republicans and real independents that actually WORK for their living beyond the bubble of this political-owned-by-corporate-insanity that won't admit the planet can shake us off like fleas and their children's future is at stake and finally… eternity exists beyond lip service. They all must be a bunch of scared or stupid old farts at this point. I may be starting to get old, but I am not scared or stupid. Julian, God bless your soul. Fight our tyranny stand up for Assange DOWNLOAD and demand the right to! The FCC is close to killing net neutrality too!!! We are the last thread before it’s all gone for our children. Talk to everybody within your community and help to knit people back together and find out who would be a better candidate then what’s running. I’d love to see a write-in beat both (only one at this point Hi Alaska!) parties. I’m thinking Dean and Feingold or Bernie, Bernie/ Feingold and Dean. Hmmm…picky whites, who would they choose best? Oh wait a minute…what about Dean and Ron Paul???http://www.rawstory.com/...ron-paul-what-wikileaks/
If we don’t pick our own choice, all we will get is one side of the chamber’s tools. Think of it, everybody ignores the lies brought to us by our corporate masters and just writes in the candidates of our collective choice! The conversation can and should take place right here on the tubz. Long live Paul Wellstone’s memory!
We gotta do sumpin, I can’t watch this fake democracy without a peep any longer. Just remember, knitting people together requires letting people speak and then civilly discussing the consequences of the weaknesses in their view without calling them an assshole!

The first “White Hat Report” sent out three weeks ago had the desired effect: picked up by the DC crowd, world leaders and translated into over ten languages across the globe.

The internet is the last bastion of free speech and truthful reporting; the mainstream media has had this story for months and refused to release it. We, the White Hats, will continue to release evidence until the entire world is aware of the corruption in the U.S.A. and beyond. Former presidents, cabinet members, congressmen–the corruption penetrates deep into the bowels of our global society and culture.

"Just remember, knitting people together requires letting people speak and then civilly discussing the consequences of the weaknesses in their view without calling them an asshole!"

I adore you, Ancient. And I agree with everything you've written above except that. Some folks can not be 'knit' and will do everything they can to keep you from 'knitting'. What to do with the head stompers?...I keep asking that question in progressive / pacifist / liberal (whatever) circles and I never get a real world answer.

They are intractable, Ancient. They're mentally gone and can not be reasoned with. (*) And while I believe things will eventually get better, I *know* for a fact it's gonna get much worse, first.

Domestic violence is gonna spike as the 2%ters ramp up the extremists, inciting them to spill (our) blood in their cooked up, vigilante defense of these criminally insane corporations; dummies screaming "FREEDOM" and chanting "USA" as they fix bayonets against US and their own self-interest. I just got back from the visiting the southern U.S. and I'm telling you...sane people are scared to death.

FWIW, I think we will all find we have different roles to play as the ramifications of what Ancient so aptly describes above become our new normal. As for me - after much consideration I've decided I'm going to be a vigilante asshole fighter / info-tech warrior / song and dance gal.

I think we can all agree that we're going to have to fight the top 2%ters, yes...that's fisting UP. But it's the massive TEATARDED foot-soldiers that are placing themselves (armed, too) directly in the protective path of the corporate powers that we also have to troubleshoot - fisting DOWN.

(*) My Aunt Sue's brain has been morphed by FOX NEWS; she is a completely different human being, now, thanks to Glenn Beck. She gets so worked up at family gatherings we have to keep her on the newspaper whenever CAP n' TRADE is discussed or she gets urine jumpy. And even tho' I once loved her more than a rare steak, she has become THE trigger for my fight or flight response.

Am I suggesting that you all come over and help me beat up my Aunt Sue? While tempting...no. But tell you what - I'll go 'take care of business n' try to dick-clip the assbag perpetrators who are manipulating her weakened mind, and leave it to you, Ancient, to tend my brainwashed Aunt Sue.

If you can't deprogram her in your capable, patient, loving, healing way....
no one can.

Thanks Jeanie, its funny the way you eggmit just how the tpartiers do it. Get us so upset with their intractability we wind up feeling futile in any attempt to express our own views, which I agree are the majority of us. You know, I'm doing a pediatric rotation right now and with the developmentally delayed kids in order to get their attention we're taught to look at their body language to figure out what the problem really is. I know this won't work with the polished turds on teevee, but with actual real live people it can help defusing escalating emotions. Oh well just 2 more cents.

Oh yeah Jeanie, we are also taught preschoolers don't have the capacity to under stand moral chioces, they imitate ours to learn. If you ask me that's what fuax noise does; it regresses emotionally immature people back to a preschool state where they're unquestionable leaders tell them what's right and wrong despite the facts they don't need to know. Come to think of it, it's what are government does too!

How interesting, Ancient! I'm most fascinated by those kind of biological explanations for what seems to me to be an impossible-to-comprehend lack of moral center! Helps me assimilate the hate, blame them less for not Googling shit.

(Sort of the same reason I hope we find conclusive evidence of the 'gay' gene, someday; will make the Pope look like a Godless Tool.)

Along those lines, I read somewhere that recent studies show that Teatarded brains have much smaller frontal lobes - which is the area of the brain that houses compassion / empath! (Of course it is!) It would follow then, Ancient, that while yours must the size of a Guatamalan Greenhouse Grapefruit, Breitbart's must be a shriveled up raisin-dick of a thing. And I bet they had Cheney's completely removed.

...oh, you are *so* getting my Aunt Sue dumped on your doorstep. There still may be hope for her, Ancient. I swear she was completely normal and loving right up until Obama's election when she started to froth at the mouth about having to press '1' for English.

Can anyone honestly see even the slightest chance of Cheney being sent to Nigeria? Obama worked with reichwingers to protect him from War Crimes, they aint about to let all that hard work go to waste! I'm really looking forward to hear the excuses from MSM, White House, GOP, G.O.TEA, and ol'Dath Cheney himself why we should flaunt international law and our own treaties. Again.

the reason i joined the tea party----actually ron paul's tea party,,,,, the original b4 being co-opted was because of bush/cheney
the illegal,based on lies, war, war contracting, kbr, the patriot act,,, and the dirty coverups,, big spending,,, favortism of big biz,, trampling of freedom, privacy, i could go on,,, but we all no the evil they did is endless

why throw in the tea party sarcasm/cheap shot, to a good article

some of us do hate them, aren't rascist and are informed and can actually be allies on issues
i can't wait for someone to have the balls to throw cheney/bush in jail,,, obama certainly won't,,, which was a hope i had for him

all of em seem elitist and we all fall for the left-right fight while middle america suffers irregardless of party in power
the greed, fraud and illegalities occurring/occured on wall st is mind boggling
i watch dylan ratigan everyday,, because he exposes gov't not so much left-right
you don't always have to throw the baby out with the bath water,,,, there are many informed, educated tea parties and the bad as well, just like on the left

ps,,,, keep up the good work on the site,,,as i look at all views,,, and try to critical think issues and what i believe,,, and can learn when i'm wrong or where the other side is wrong .. i originally found it for the sibel edmonds testimony,,, what a waste,,,, totally overlooked by msmedia,, and forgotten .... that's our USA
her testimony was earth shattering and didn't make a blip

ps,,, i's m so sick of big business breaking the law because the consequences are only monetary and small compared to the overall benefit.

they can almost price in being caught and say,,well, we'll still make millions in profit...

and one wrong doesn't make a right,,, with the acorn line,,,, they were dirty as well

all corruption big or small must be exposed..

the crap that snow did with the csx railroad was crazy and of course he was rewarded with a seat in the bush administration,,, just like obama's appointees,,,
jarret and napolitano
and taylor in fda,,, who during clinton got rbgh into milk
vilsack is a monsanto lackey,,,
i see gov't and those at the top as the enemy,, not ideolgy
obama seems more big biz than we were lead to believe,,

i had hope for his transparency,,, streamlining programs and budgets,, his "line by line budget"
end the wars and many other brooken promises

let's agree bush/cheney bad-sucked

but are you also disappointed in obama???
seems to cave and broken many,many campaign promises

i see more and more,,, it's the people vs those in gov't
no matter what we're always let down on either side